A professor at UCLA has a small set of cards by the lectern. It’s a simple deck of theory cards based on David Gauntlett’s theories about media and identity, not a textbook or printed syllabus. Colleagues who have heard her talk about it claim that she described it as the best fifteen dollars she had ever spent on schooling. That remark, which was made casually at a faculty mixer last spring, has subtly taken on a life of its own.
It has always been a little challenging to summarize Gauntlett’s work in a conventional lecture. His main point, that media gives people tools to create their own identities rather than just pushing messages at passive audiences, sounds sophisticated when put in writing. However, getting pupils to truly sense that difference is a completely different issue. The second edition of his 2008 book “Media, Gender and Identity,” which is still insightful and persuasive but doesn’t precisely represent a world where identity is negotiated through YouTube thumbnails and TikTok comments, was used by educators for many years.
The dynamic is slightly but significantly altered by the card set. Each card condenses a particular idea into something you can hold, pass around, or lay flat on a table next to another person’s card. Examples of these ideas include fluidity of identity, the departure from rigid gender roles, and the notion of media as triggers for experience rather than channels for messaging. It’s tactile in a way that a PDF just isn’t, and the physicality seems to inspire students to debate the concepts rather than merely memorize them.
Timing may play a role in the appeal. Although his earlier frameworks are still frequently cited in UK A-level curricula, Gauntlett has acknowledged that they were developed prior to the creator economy changing the definition of media participation. The card connected his fundamental ideas about identity construction to the type of media behavior that students are already familiar with from their own lives, such as Zoella using YouTube to perform and negotiate selfhood in real time in addition to broadcasting.
Observing how these resources proliferate in academic circles gives the impression that teachers are genuinely in need of resources that address theory where students are. Although the traditional lecture format is still in use, it is being strained by a generation that has a different way of processing information. A professor who can give someone a card and tell them to “argue against this” is doing something that a slide deck hardly ever accomplishes.
It’s still unclear if media studies classrooms outside of a few universities will start using the Gauntlett card set. Academic adoption proceeds slowly and frequently at random. However, it says something that a UCLA professor casually brought it up at a faculty event, not in a formal recommendation or journal review, and the comment continued to circulate. The most effective teaching resources frequently disseminate in this manner. Not via the official channels. Just someone whispering to another person that it was successful.
It’s not a serious investment to spend fifteen dollars. Apparently, it bought a means of making abstract theory seem like a worthwhile discussion.
